ODS App Offers Easy Way to Track Supplement UseBy Jan Ehrman

It’s a scene played out time and again in a physician’s office. You’re about to see a new doctor and are asked to fill out the new-patient questionnaire. Among other ques-tions, you’re asked to list all dietary supple-ments you’re taking. Can’t recall if you still take vitamin E? How much calcium are you consuming? And what’s the name of the multi-vitamin you pop daily?

That may be too much to recall, especially while waiting nervously to meet the doctor for the first time. However, if you had the nifty software known as MyDS, the information would be at your fingertips. What’s MyDS?

It’s a mobile app, compatible with the iPad and iPhone—a unique tool produced by NIH’s Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS), a com-ponent of the Office of the NIH Director. Its

Ready to Stand Up Oct. 1Collins Gives Update on NCATS at Town Hall MeetingBy Carla Garnett

NIH’s proposed new addition—the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, or NCATS—is on schedule for its Oct. 1 delivery date, said NIH direc-

tor Dr. Francis Collins at a Mar. 14 town hall meet-ing in Masur Auditorium. The 63-minute session provided a chance for him to update employees on NCATS progress and answer their questions.

Collins first acknowledged that the meeting was occurring during a time when global attention was fixed on a natural disaster. An earthquake-fol-lowed-by-tsunami devastated northeastern Japan on Mar. 11 and threatened a much larger region past Japanese borders.

“All of us are watching with great alarm and con-cern,” Collins said about events unfolding in the Pa-cific. He said he and other staff are waiting to learn how NIH might help the situation. Message on Morale

Collins then addressed employee morale and the

above · What’s NIH’s mascot this spring? The construction crane. See more photos on p. 12.

see alda, page 6 see supplements, page 8

Alda Offers Ways To Improve Science CommunicationBy Rich McManus

Actor Alan Alda, who once directed the pow-ers of geniality, wit and intelligence on the intractable rigidity of the Army in his role as physician Hawk-eye Pierce in the long-running TV comedy M*A*S*H, is now unleashing the same positive energy on another implacable institution: aca-demic science.

One of four guest speakers at a Mar. 1 STEP forum titled “Look Who’s Talking: Communi-cating Your Message Fearlessly and Flawlessly,” Alda demonstrated how the tools of his profes-sion, specifically improvisational acting, can benefit the human-to-human contact that most effectively transmits scientific information.

features 1

Collins Outlines NCATS Strategy at Town Hall Meeting for Employees

3CFC 2010 Celebrates Final Tally

5NIH Home Page Undergoes Remodeling, Debuts Apr. 7

9NIH’s First African-American Deputy Director Is Mourned

12Get a Glimpse or Two of Porter II Construction Progress

departments

Briefs 2

Milestones 9

Digest 10

Seen 12

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APRIL 1, 2011

VOL. LXIII, NO. 7The Second Best Thing About Payday

The NIH Record is recyclable as office white paper.

NIH director Dr. Francis Collins addresses employee morale, NCATS at town hall meeting.

2 NIH RECORD APRIL 1, 2011

briefs

2 APRIL 1, 2011

The NIH Record is published biweekly at Bethesda, MD by the Editorial Operations Branch, Office of Communications and Public Liaison, for the information of employees of the National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services. The content is reprintable without permission. Pictures may be available upon request. Use of funds for printing this pe-riodical has been approved by the director of the Office of Management and Budget through September 30, 2011.

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Staff Writer Jan Ehrman Jan.Ehrman@nih.gov

The NIH Record reserves the right to make corrections, changes or deletions in submitted copy in conformity with the policies of the paper and HHS.

Author Kaye To Give DDM Seminar

The third seminar in the Deputy Director for Management (DDM) 2010-2011 series “Manage-ment and Science: Partnering for Excellence” will feature Dr. Beverly Kaye, an internationally recognized authority on retention and engage-ment in the workplace. She will speak on Thursday, Apr. 14 from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Masur Auditorium, Bldg. 10, on the topic, “Love ’Em or Lose ’Em: Getting Good People to Stay.” Her talk will address the importance of employee engagement and the leader’s role in retention.

Videocasting and sign language will be pro-vided. Individuals who need reasonable accom-modation to attend should call (301) 496-6211 or the Federal Relay Service at 1-800-877-8339. For more information about the DDM Seminar Series, visit www.ddmseries.od.nih.gov or call (301) 496-3271.

Bench-to-Bedside Awardees Lecture, Apr. 8

The Clinical Center and the translational research interest group will present a Bench-to-Bedside Lecture on Friday, Apr. 8, 1-3 p.m., Lipsett Amphitheater, Bldg. 10. Speakers are Dr. Alan S. Wayne, head, hematologic diseases section, Pediatric Oncology Branch, NCI, speak-ing on “Bench-to-Bedside Development of Novel Therapies for Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia” and Dr. Deborah Persaud, associate professor, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, who will discuss “Therapeutic HIV Vaccines’ Effects on Viral Reservoirs.”

The lecture series highlights novel research projects resulting from partnerships formed under the Bench-to-Bedside Award Program, established in 1999. For more information, visit www.cc.nih.gov/ccc/btb/lectures.html.

Earthquake Assistance Fund Available

The Foundation for Advanced Education in the Sciences (FAES) has established a fund to help earthquake victims in Japan. Voluntary contribu-tions may be sent to FAES in Bldg. 60, Suite 230 (One Cloister Court, Bethesda, MD 20814) and designated for the “Japanese Earthquake Fund.”

Join the NIH-HHS Mentoring Program

NIH wants you to join the HHS Mentoring Pro-gram. Federal employees interested in serving as mentors and mentees across the NIH commu-nity are invited to join the NIH April 2011 cohort. The cornerstone of the program is “Partnering for Excellence” through building a confidential,

interactive relationship. The Mentoring Program does not take the place of NIH scientific mentoring and customized IC leadership mentoring programs available to employees in some institutes and centers. Instead, it fills gaps where programs do not exist and enables NIH-wide or even across-HHS relationships. Visit the NIH-HHS Mentoring Program site at http://trainingcenter.nih.gov/HHS_ Mentoring.html.

Mitochondrial Biology Symposium, May 16-17

The 2011 NHLBI Mitochondrial Biology Symposium: Advances in Mitochondrial Dynamics and Mitochon-drial-Cytosolic Communications will be held May 16-17 at the Natcher Conference Center. Keynote speaker will be Dr. Douglas C. Wallace, chair in pediatric mitochondrial medicine and metabolic disease and director of the Center for Mitochondrial and Epigenomic Medicine at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Submit your abstract online by Apr. 8; registration deadline is Apr. 29 at www. NHLBIMitochondrialSymposia.org and is free. For more information contact Elizabeth Meyer at elizabethmeyer@strategicresults.com.

NIEHS Invites Ideas for Strategic Planning

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences seeks input for its new strategic plan. There are two ways to get involved. You can submit a visionary idea and nominate a workshop participant.

“We are looking for innovative ideas to help define the institute’s future directions, research goals and resource priorities,” said NIEHS deputy director Dr. Richard Woychik, who is leading the strategic planning effort.

Ideas can be submitted at http://strategicplan.niehs.nih.gov/. All ideas will be posted to the web site and anyone can comment on the ideas or give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down rating. Submissions will be accepted through Apr. 30.

NIEHS is also accepting nominations for a stake-holder community workshop that will be held in mid-July in Research Triangle Park, N.C. You can nominate yourself, a respected colleague or anyone who is passionate about understanding the envi-ronment for the purpose of improving public health and preventing disease. Nominations can be made at www.niehs.nih.gov/about/od/strategicplan/nomination/index.cfm.

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Exceeds Goal by Almost Half a Million Dollars Triumphant CFC Season Concludes

NIH raised $2.7 million for the 2010 Combined Federal Campaign, far surpassing its goal of $2.3 million. A crowd gathered in Bldg. 1’s Wil-son Hall on Mar. 8 to honor the award recipi-ents who participated in the NIH effort. The ceremony began with a welcome from NIMH’s Patrick Shirdon, 2010 NIH CFC manager.

“It’s a challenge, but definitely fun,” said Shirdon of his experience in leading the NIH CFC this past season.

Next, NIH principal deputy director Dr. Law-rence Tabak and NIMH deputy director Dr. Philip Wang thanked the institutes and centers for their diligence throughout the campaign.

Christine Williams, who served as HHS CFC manager, pre-sented Shirdon with the HHS Superlative Award for Outstand-ing Campaign Man-agement.

Guest speaker Linda Washington, local federal coordinating committee chair, pre-sented NIH with the

CFC of the National Capital Area’s Million Dol-lar Circle Award. The honor recognizes federal departments and agencies that donate over $1 million to the CFCNCA to help people and com-munities in need.

Washington had only praise for NIH employees, pointing out that even people who could not offer financial help during these difficult eco-nomic times still found other ways to contrib-ute to the campaign.

“You should be very proud for what you do as federal employees,” she said.

Shirdon, Tabak and Wang also presented awards to keyworkers from each institute. Several hon-orees posed for pictures with colleagues.

The ceremony concluded with a video featur-ing clips from all of the NIH CFC events, such as NIH director Dr. Francis Collins performing a memorable duet with 6-year-old singing sensa-tion Kaitlyn Maher.—Setareh Kamali

Patrick Shirdon, 2010 NIH CFC manager

At the CFC 2010 wrap-up are (from l) Linda Washington, local federal coordinating committee chair; Shirdon; Christine Williams, HHS CFC manager; NIMH deputy director Dr. Philip Wang; and NIH principal deputy director Dr. Lawrence Tabak.

Haynes To Lecture on HIV Vaccine Development

Dr. Barton F. Haynes will deliver this year’s James C. Hill Memorial Lecture, titled “The Path to HIV Vaccine Development,” on Thursday, Apr. 14, at 2 p.m. in Lipsett Amphitheater, Bldg. 10.

He will begin by discussing impediments to HIV vac-cine design and testing and recent progress to over-come them. Then he will present new data on immune responses generated by the candidate vaccine tested in the RV144 HIV vaccine clinical trial in Thailand, the first HIV vaccine to demonstrate modest efficacy in humans. He will conclude by outlining the path of research to understand and build on the results of the Thai trial, which was sponsored by the U.S. Army and received major funding from NIAID.

Haynes is the Frederic M. Hanes professor of medicine and immunology at Duke University School of Medicine and director of both the Duke Human Vaccine Institute and the NIAID-funded Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology.

A leader in the fields of human immune reconstitution and host-pathogen inter-actions, Haynes co-developed a technique for growing human thymus tissue that can be transplanted into babies born without a thymus, thereby saving their lives.

In addition, Haynes changed the paradigm for understanding why HIV vaccine candidates have not yet elicited antibodies that stop a wide range of HIV strains from infecting human cells. He demonstrated that to interfere with the devel-opment of powerful anti-HIV antibodies, the virus hijacks certain mechanisms used by the body to prevent autoimmune diseases. Thus, an effective strategy to develop an HIV vaccine must involve not only what a vaccine presents to the immune system, but also how the immune system regulates itself.

The annual Hill lecture is dedicated to the memory of the former NIAID deputy director, who helped build the institute’s HIV/AIDS research program during the earliest years of the epidemic and was instrumental in educating the public and government officials on the emerging threat of AIDS.

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NCATScontinued from page 1

sense of unease some may be feeling. In the U.S., uncertainty has been focused for months on whether a federal budget for fiscal year 2011 can be finalized, thereby averting a potential government shutdown.

“Certainly at NIH this has not been a particular-ly easy time,” he continued. “I don’t have to tell any of you about the instabilities that are caus-ing us anxiety as we once again are facing a cir-cumstance whereby at the end of this week we’re

warned, but the opportunity is too extraordi-nary to pass up, the potential impact on public health too great to ignore.

Building a Bridge

Collins then presented “Catalyzing Innovation,” a slide show outlining the goals and strategy for creating NCATS and how that strategy aligns with U.S. investment priorities for the future.

At one point, he showed a graphic of two shore-lines. The left coast represented “Fundamental Knowledge.” The right was “Application of Fun-damental Knowledge.” The beaches were sepa-rated by a large body of water. Collins said NIH is developing NCATS to bridge that span, to get information from one side to the other.

To put it in practical terms, Collins showed a rainbow-striped diagram illustrating the long, complex steps a potential new drug must travel from researcher’s lab to patient’s bedside.

“It would be—especially at this time—good for NIH to look for ways that we can optimize this process, working in partnership with pharma and biotech,” he said.

The ultimate goal of NCATS is to make the jour-ney shorter and faster. By studying the process in a scientific way, he suggested, NCATS will be a bridge-builder between new therapies and the patients waiting on them.

Busting the Myths

Since the new center was announced several months ago, several concerns have been raised about the concept of NCATS. At the town hall, Collins was careful to address three of the main worries he’s heard.

Collins updates employees on the newest addition proposed for NIH, NCATS.photos: ernie branson

“It would be—especially at this time—good for NIH to look for ways that we can optimize this process, working in partnership with pharma and biotech.”

not quite sure whether the government will be open or closed…Obviously the debate on the budget for NIH is taking a toll on many people.”

Collins also touched on the difficulties of living with the federal pay freeze.

“Maybe it’s particularly hard because of the messages that are coming from certain places that public sector employees are not as valued as they should be,” he said. “The politics that are going on right now can at times be pretty unpleasant. It is unfortunate indeed that dedi-cated people such as those who work here at NIH are being characterized as bureaucrats or people who are not that interested in working hard. I know better…We will get through this.”

Timing Is Everything

In that context, Collins proceeded to lay out the case for launching NCATS now. Scientific opportunities have never been more plentiful and primed for investigation, he said, and more important, the public has never been more ready and in need of medical breakthroughs. Some people have voiced doubts about the wis-dom of NIH starting a project of such magni-tude during the current climate of uncertainty. Collins addressed doubters directly.

“If we at NIH are dedicated to serve the pub-lic by advancing opportunities to prevent and treat disease, and we see an opening to do that even better, then ‘It’s never the wrong time to do the right thing,’” he said, quoting his pre-decessor, former NIH director Dr. Elias Zerhouni.

“[Of course establishing NCATS] will require us to do in tight times things that we wish we could do more generously and flexibly,” he

5

3 The new center will “facilitate—not dupli-cate”—translational research efforts already under way at other NIH components.

3 NCATS is meant to “complement—not com-pete with”—private sector drug and therapy development.

3 The center will “reinforce—not reduce”—NIH’s commitment to basic research.

“NCATS will have its success by catalyzing col-laborations across NIH,” he stressed.

Collins also took time to acknowledge the fears and anxieties felt by employees, particular-ly those who work at the National Center for Research Resources, which is being dismantled to create NCATS.

“I know this can be disruptive,” he concluded, noting that the scientific community has always embraced change when the opportunity arises. “I know there are real people involved in these programs. They are not just boxes on a chart…I firmly believe that what we end up with this fall is going to be a very exciting new kind of NIH organizational structure.”

Collins ended the meeting by reminding the audience to visit http://feedback.nih.gov. NIH is using the web site to address questions and collect input on NCATS and other topics.

NIH’ers can view the entire town hall session, which is archived under Past Events at video-cast.nih.gov.

New Look for NIH Home Page

Assuming all goes well, the familiar look of www.nih.gov will change late in the day on Apr. 7. The fresh look complements the appearance and feel of the current administration’s web presence and is more in line with the phi-losophy of open, participatory government. From the navigation tabs across the top, the “mega” drop-down menus provide additional functionality while minimizing page clutter. For example, you can browse or search for health topics without leaving the page you’re on.

The new design also: has a human-centric mood with overtones that reflect science and medicine; is easy to read and has an uncluttered look; and incor-porates a strong presence for the NIH logo and banner.

The new look is a product of the Online Information Branch, Office of Com-munications and Public Liaison, OD.

STEP Forum on Water’s Importance

The staff training in extramural programs (STEP) committee will present a Science in the Public Health forum on the topic “Life’s Matrix: Water on a Very Crowded Planet,” on Tuesday, Apr. 26, from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Lister Hill Auditorium, Bldg. 38A.

Water permeates our bodies and our world. Access to clean drinking water is a basic human need, yet such access is limited in large parts of the world. Moreover, pollution from a variety of sources is an ever-increasing problem. Where are the reserves of drinking water and are they shrinking? How does access to water affect global health and the success of nations? This forum will address what makes water so special that life cannot exist without it.

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ALDAcontinued from page 1

Top, l: Alda participates in an improvisational exercise called “Hitchhiker.” That is NCI’s Cindy Davis behind “the wheel.”

Top, r: In the same improv exercise, NIEHS’s Jerry Phelps (l) is a passenger in the “vehicle,” now driven by Alda.

Below: Alda gets a tour of the Clinical Research Center from its director Dr. John Gallin.

photos: bill branson

Currently a visiting professor at Stony Brook University’s Center for Communicating Science, Alda said that simple curiosity spurred him to put aside a successful career as actor, writer and director and become host, for more than a decade, of the PBS television series Scientific American Frontiers.

Immediately likeable and speaking extempo-raneously, Alda said the best communication about science he ever received was when he fell acutely ill while pursuing a story about astron-omy on a mountaintop in Chile. Expertly diag-nosed with a blocked intestine, Alda said his doctor “leaned in to me and said, ‘We’re gonna cut out the bad section, then join the two good ends together.’”

To which the world-famous TV doctor replied, “Oh, an end-to-end anastomosis! That’s the first operation I learned about on M*A*S*H…But with [the doctor’s] simple words, I could picture exactly what he was going to do. If he couldn’t do it, I was ready to do it.”

The pursuit of such clarity and simplicity has informed Alda’s interview style in his new career as a science communication avatar.

“We didn’t do conventional interviews on our show,” he explained. “We only did the show because I was curious. My method was to ask and listen until I understood. That made for a lively experience on both sides.

“When people are relating [to one another], you can’t take your eyes off of them…We [viewers] instinctively want to understand the connec-tion,” he explained.

Alda said his “path-changing moment” occurred while interviewing a woman scientist on cam-era. He realized that she was lecturing the cam-era, not speaking to him. “She became almost immediately incomprehensible” while address-ing the inert machine, he said, so he “coaxed her back” with a series of naïve questions.

“Right away she became warmer and more responsive,” he recalls. “She switched from lec-ture mode to real conversation.”

Alda concedes that lecture mode is hard to avoid, but warns that an inability to overcome it will result in failure to reach policymakers, the public and Congress about the importance of supporting science.

“This is a scary time,” he said. “The air is thick with budget-cutting…Communication is very weak between science and Congress.”

What baffles him is that “people are doing sci-ence of the most intriguing kind, so why can’t they intrigue their representatives in Congress?”

The solution, which brought him to Stony Brook in 2009, is to train science graduate students in the dramatic arts, specifically improvisational acting. Improv demands, above all, that humans attend carefully to one another.

“I am convinced that methodical, rigorous train-ing over time can make any scientist a better communicator,” he said. “But it can’t be a last-minute add-on [to a science curriculum].”

Alda has discovered that “the public doesn’t

7

think like scientists…the value of evidence is not widely appreciated.

“The public is on kind of a blind date with sci-ence,” he explained; the two parties are “not quite sure who we’re talking to. And as we all know, blind dates can be disastrous. I think you can get over the blind-date problem with the three stages of love—lust, or being attracted, infatuation and commitment.”

Alda emphasized the importance of emotion in human communication. “You’ve got to have emotion if you want people to pay attention.”

In the course of creating an award-winning PBS series titled The Human Spark, Alda sought to determine what defines humanness. “What we most often heard is that what makes us human is our ability to be social,” he said. Finding out what’s going on in the mind of another person is inherently fascinating. “Why would you drop that when communicating something as impor-tant as science?” he wondered.

It dawned on him that improv, the only acting training he ever received, could be therapeuti-cally applied to engineering majors, so he craft-ed a clinical trial.

“Improv teaches you how to be available to oth-ers, who are not your enemy but your partners,” he explained. It reduces social fears and encour-ages partners “to be present to one another.”

Alda videotaped the students describing their work both before a series of improv exercises and after, then showed the Masur audience the results: stiff and wooden before, natural and outgoing after, in virtually every instance.

Aware of science’s rigorous standards of proof, Alda is not content to let anecdotal evidence of his training’s effectiveness argue for its inclu-sion in all American science curricula. He issued a number of caveats.

“Our goal is to achieve clarity and vividness [in

science communica-tion], not to dumb it down,” he said. “We’re not trying to turn sci-entists into actors.” His program is accumulating “data we can trust” that will be subject to formal evaluation, he said.

Meanwhile, it is prov-ing popular on cam-pus. “At Brookhaven [National Laboratory] and at Cold Spring Harbor [Laboratory], the scientists were very eager to participate,” Alda said. “We’ve had several groups of 10 to 20 scientists participate in six 3-hour sessions.” Representatives from some 50 universities are coming to Stony Brook this summer for train-ing, he said. The workshops cover both written and personal presentation.

“It’s fun to tell our sto-ries, and to become emotionally involved,” he said. “It makes us lust for knowledge…let’s fall in love!”

The 4-hour STEP ses-sion ended with demon-strations of improv giv-en by five Stony Brook students, dubbed the “Stony Brook Bunsen Burners.” They illus-trated Alda’s point that improv has little to do with being clever or funny (except incidentally) and all to do with a willingness to reach out to another human being.

The event is archived at http://videocast.nih.gov/summary.asp?Live=9758 (HHS only) and includes presentations by three other commu-nication experts: Barrett Whitener of IQ Solu-tions offered an architecture of lecture prepara-tion and presentation; Dr. Stephen Kosslyn of Stanford University showed how insights from psychology can improve PowerPoint presen-tations; and Nan Tolbert of the Communica-tion Center, who has media-trained many top NIH officials, emphasized the importance of a dynamic stage presence.

At a dinner in Bethesda the night before the STEP event, Alda met with NIH’ers including Dr. Sherry Mills (above), director of the Office of Extramural Programs, OER, and NIH director Dr. Francis Collins (below).

“You’ve got to have emotion if you want people to pay attention,” says Alda.

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SUPPLEMENTScontinued from page 1

popularity on the rise, MyDS became available for use through the iTunes store in mid-Octo-ber. To date, there have been more than 2,000 downloads of MyDS by consumers.

Mobile apps are a hot item in the health tech-nology arena. They are currently available to help manage blood pressure, diabetes, weight management and other health issues. However, this appears to be the first app with a focus on helping consumers keep track of their dietary supplement regimen.

According to Jody Engel, a nutritionist and registered dietitian with ODS, more than half the population of the U.S. take dietary supple-ments; total sales in 2009 reached $26.9 billion. Experts acknowledge that dietary supplements can interact with prescription and over-the-counter medications, so it’s paramount that health care providers, as well as patients, have this information readily accessible.

“The real beauty of this product is that with MyDS on your mobile device, you have easy access to this information at the doctor’s office, at the grocery or drug store when you purchase your supplements, wherever, whenever you need it,” said Engel. “You can easily keep track of your supplements including the exact name and dosage.”

The information can then be hand-delivered or emailed to one’s health care provider, helping him or her to avoid interactions between dietary supplements and medications, she added.

The app has four primary purposes or standard features: it lists your dietary supplements; it enables users to share the list with health care providers; it provides access to ODS fact sheets

on dietary supplements; and it gives general information on ODS, including a link to its web site. A password protection feature is available and, on the iPhone, the ability to take up to two photos of the dietary supplement label.

Engel noted, “Another key feature it has is the ability to track dietary supplement profiles for multiple people, not only the individual, but also a parent or grandparent who may have dif-ficulty remembering key information about the supplements they consume.”

Currently MyDS works only with the iPad or iPhone, but a new web app version is being developed that will afford compatibility with more devices, offering more users access to this state-of-the-art tool.

To learn more about MyDS, visit http://ods.od.nih.gov/myds, where you can also down-load the app. Or, you can go to the app store on your device, search for MyDS and proceed from there.

For more information, email ods@nih.gov or phone (301) 435-2920.

Right: Jody Engel, a nutritionist and registered dietitian with the Office of Dietary Supplements

Below: “There’s an app for that.” MyDS appears to be the first app with a focus on helping consumers keep track of their dietary supplement regimen.

FAES Offers Free Community Shred Day

On Friday, Apr. 22, from 4 to 7 p.m., the FAES, in collaboration with Torn2Shredz, will sponsor a Free Community Shred Day as part of its observance of Earth Day. The event will take place at the FAES Social & Academic Center, 9101 Old Georgetown Rd. (across the street from NIH, on the corner of West Cedar Ln. and Old Georgetown Rd.). Limited com-pact fluorescent light bulb and battery recy-cling will also be available.

Watch on closed-circuit TV while your old bank and credit card statements are destroyed and then sent for recycling. Protect your identi-ty while you protect Mother Earth. Attend-ees are asked to limit themselves to 2 bankers boxes worth of personal documents. For more information, contact FAES property manager Rose McNeely at (301) 530-2194 or FAESSAC@gmail.com.

9

milestonesFormer NIH Deputy Director Malone Dies

Dr. Thomas E. Malone, who served as the sixth NIH deputy director for 9 years before retiring from NIH in 1986, died Mar. 7 after a long illness. He was 84. Malone was the first African Ameri-

can to serve at such a senior level at NIH and was briefly the acting NIH director.

Born in Henderson, N.C., in 1926, he had been a resident of Potomac for the last 42 years. He earned his B.S. and M.S. degrees from North Carolina Central University in 1948 and 1949 respectively, and his Ph.D. from Harvard Univer-sity in 1952.

Malone was professor of zoology at N.C. Central University in Durham from 1952 to 1958. He left to accept a postdoctoral fellowship of the NAS National Research Council, serving as a resident research associate at Argonne National Labora-tory from 1958 to 1959. He subsequently served on the faculty at Loyola University in Chicago until joining the NIH staff in 1962.

He came to NIH as a member of the Grants Asso-ciates Program. After completing a year’s train-ing, he joined the National Institute of Dental Research in 1963, serving in several capacities.

In 1967, Malone accepted a position as profes-sor and chairman of the department of biology at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. He returned to NIDR in 1969, where he was associ-ate director for extramural programs until 1972, when he was appointed NIH associate director for extramural research and training, a position he held until his appointment as deputy director of NIH.

“When I am asked to describe what Tom Malone meant to NIH, I say that he was both a pioneer and a pillar,” said NICHD deputy direc-tor Dr. Yvonne Maddox. “He was the first Afri-can-American deputy director of NIH and his commitment to bringing others into executive positions and mentoring them was always obvi-

ous. His dedication and leadership was of cen-tral importance to the agency during those early years of his tenure.”

Upon his retirement from NIH at age 60, Malone said, “NIH is, in my judgment, one of the great institutions of our time and perhaps of all time…The benefits to mankind have already been phenomenal, but I believe what’s to come is undreamed of today.”

Observed then-NIH director Dr. James Wyngaarden, “I have rarely seen such equanimity and good cheer in anyone han-dling such an endless array of pressure-packed and burdensome issues. And he did all this with the warmth and friendly man-ner that have earned him universal admi-ration. I will miss him greatly.”

After leaving NIH, Malone worked at the Association of American Medical Colleges until he retired for good in 1996.

“Tom was a special hero for many years as my career evolved from a research sociol-ogist to a health science administrator to that of a senior executive,” said Dr. Lois K. Cohen, who retired from NIH in 2006 as director of NIDCR’s Office of Interna-tional Health. “I always appreciated his sage guidance along this pathway as he served as a mentor, even after he retired from the NIH and moved on to new chal-lenges. While he is deeply missed, his leg-acy as a role model for many others like me lives on.”

Among his many honors, Malone was a mem-ber of the Institute of Medicine and had received a Presidential Merit Award in 1980 and a Presidential Distinguished Executive Rank Award in 1983.

“T,” as he was known, had several passions in life. He was a black belt judo instructor for over half his life, establishing a martial arts center, which bears his name, on the B4 level of Bldg. 31. He held a pilot’s license and loved to fly, and enjoyed classical music and opera. He also had special regard for the Recreation and Wel-fare Association at NIH. “R&W has given NIH a heart and soul that have touched the larger community in which we live,” he said.

Malone is survived by his wife of over 57 years, Dolores, and two children, Shana D. Anderson (a grants management specialist at NICHD) and Thomas, Jr., and by a sister.

Above, l: Dr. Thomas Malone in 2002 at a memorial service for former NIH director Dr. Donald Fredrickson

Above, r: Malone, in full martial arts mode on the lawn of Bldg. 1, prepares to give a judo dem-onstration during Employee Fitness Day in 2001.

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ddigestRelief Found for Seasonal Asthma Attacks in Young People

A drug that targets the antibody immunoglob-ulin E, a key player in asthma, nearly eliminat-ed seasonal increases in asthma attacks and decreased asthma symptoms among young people living in inner-city environments, a clinical trial sponsored by NIH has found. The findings appeared in the Mar. 17 New England Journal of Medicine.

This investigational use of the drug omali-zumab, sold under the brand name Xolair, was conducted in eight U.S. cities by the Inner City Asthma Consortium, a nationwide clinical tri-als network supported by NIAID. The Nation-al Center for Research Resources and Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. provided additional sup-port for the study.

In the United States, asthma affects approxi-mately 18 million adults and 7 million children under the age of 18. Symptoms include wheez-ing, coughing, chest tightness and shortness of breath, any of which can be provoked by viral infections, allergens and air pollution. The num-ber of asthma attacks rises in the spring and fall seasons when more allergens are in the air and the occurrence of respiratory viruses increases.

Finding of Long-Sought Drug Target Structure May Expedite Drug Discovery

Researchers have solved the three-dimensional structure of a key biological receptor. The find-ing has the potential to speed drug discovery in many areas, from arthritis to respiratory disor-ders to wound healing, because it enables chem-ists to better examine and design molecules for use in experimental drugs.

NIH researchers collaborated with labs at the Scripps Research Institute and the University of California, San Diego. The finding was pub-lished in the Mar. 10 edition of Science Express.

“This is an important step forward—it was impossible until recently to know how this type of receptor is switched on by chemi-cal signals like a tiny machine,” said NIDDK’s Dr. Kenneth A. Jacobson, an author on the paper. “The architecture of the activated recep-tor allows us to think in more detailed terms about the other half of the drug interaction. We hope that we’re on the verge of a revolu-

tion that will expedite the process of crafting new drugs to treat disease.”

With this finding, scientists in Jacobson’s lab, including co-author Dr. Zhan-Guo Gao, will next work on testing this drug-engineering approach with similar molecules they have new-ly synthesized.

New Robot System To Test 10,000 Chemicals For Toxicity

NIH and several other federal agencies recently unveiled a new high-speed robot screening sys-tem that will test 10,000 different chemicals for potential toxicity. The system marks the begin-ning of a new phase of an ongoing collabora-tion, referred to as Tox21, that is working to protect human health by improving how chemi-cals are tested in the United States.

The robot system, which is located at the NIH Chemical Genomics Center in Rockville, was purchased as part of the Tox21 collaboration. Tox21 was established in 2008 between the NIEHS National Toxicology Program, NHGRI and the Environmental Protection Agency. The Food and Drug Administration joined in 2010. Tox21 merges existing agency resources (research, funding and testing tools) to develop ways to more effectively predict how chemicals will affect human health and the environment.

The 10,000 chemicals screened by the robot sys-tem include compounds found in industrial and consumer products, food additives and drugs. A thorough analysis and prioritization process from more than 200 public databases of chemi-cals and drugs used in the U.S. and abroad was conducted to select the initial 10,000 chemicals for testing. Testing results will provide infor-mation useful for evaluating whether these chemicals have the potential to disrupt human body processes enough to lead to adverse health effects.—compiled by Carla Garnett

An NIH-sponsored clinical trial has found that a drug that targets the antibody immunoglobulin E—a key player in asthma—nearly eliminated seasonal increases in asthma attacks and decreased asthma symptoms among young people living in inner-city environments.

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ORWH Discusses Partnering with Canadian Health Officials

Representatives of NIH and the Institute of Gender Health (IGH) of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) met recently to dis-cuss priorities and common problems faced in sex differences research in women’s and men’s health and to focus on ways the two organiza-tions might further their similar missions.

Sixteen NIH representatives, led by ORWH director Dr. Vivian Pinn, met with the four Canadian representatives of IGH, scientific director Dr. Joy Johnson, Assistant Director Abigail Forson and advisory board members Dr. Donna Stewart and Dr. Bilkis Vissandjee. The discussion included topics such as ensur-ing inclusion of pregnant women in drug tri-als; ensuring inclusion of minorities in research studies and in the scientific workforce; and training that focuses on the importance of sex and gender in relation to good science.

Johnson said there is a need to find ways for Canadian and U.S. researchers to know one another so that they potentially could collabo-rate more. A possible joint roundtable on sex-specific health research was suggested.

Johnson also said that as of December 2010, all CIHR grant application forms include two ques-tions requiring applicants to indicate wheth-er sex and/or gender considerations are taken into account in their designs. Subsequently, the IGH developed a reference document provid-ing health researchers a framework for think-ing about how sex differences might be inte-grated into their research designs. In addition, they developed a quick guide for peer reviewers in assessing whether proposals submitted by applicants appropriately integrate sex and gen-der in their designs.

CIHR, composed of 13 institutes, is the major federal agency for funding health research in Canada. Johnson pointed out that every insti-tute within it, including the IGH, gets the same amount of funding. IGH funds sex/gender research across many fields and in collaboration with the other institutes.

NIEHS Scientist Mason Wins Medal NIEHS principal investigator Dr. Ron Mason was recently selected as the 2011 Gold Medal Winner by the International EPR (ESR) Society, which recognized his contributions to the field of electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR), also known as electron spin reso-nance (ESR).

Society president Dr. Jack Freed noted Mason’s “long career with interests spanning physical chemistry through to medicine” and singled out his “pioneering work in the use of spin traps in vivo and methods for ascertaining true radical formation.” The Gold Medal is the society’s highest award.

EPR/ESR is a spectroscopic technique that detects free radicals in chemical and biological systems. Mason is a physical chemist who heads the free radical metabolism group in NIEHS’s Laboratory of Toxicology and Pharmacology.

Mason’s group uses EPR/ESR and the immuno-spin trapping technique developed by his group in 2006 to detect and identify free radical metabolism of toxic chemi-cals, drugs and biochemicals to unravel the molecular mechanisms that lead to oxidative stress and development of disease. The group has also become interest-ed in determining biomarkers for oxidative damage in rodents and humans.

Dr. Ron Mason photo: steve mccaw

Dr. Joy Johnson (l) of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and her staff meet with ORWH.

CSR Honors Outstanding Staffers

The Center for Scientific Review gave its most presti-gious awards to four innovative and pioneering staff members at its recent award ceremony.

A three-member team earned CSR’s Explorer Award for developing the concept for a single cross-cutting review panel to assess interdisciplinary grant appli-cations with the promise of translating advances in basic research into advances in clinical research: Dr. Eileen Bradley, chief of the surgical sciences, biomedical imaging and bioengineering review group; Dr. Syed Quadri, chief of the oncological sciences review group; and Dr. Joy Gibson, direc-tor of the Division of Translational and Clinical Sciences.

Dr. George Chacko, CSR’s new director of planning, analysis and evaluation, was recognized with a CSR Architect Award for assisting the IRS in implementing its Qualifying Therapeutic Discovery Project program, which issued $1 billion in tax credits or grants to small businesses. CSR engaged about 120 of its scientific review officers to help IRS determine which of the 5,600 projects submitted met qualifications, were designed to meet the goals of the program and had a reason-able chance of success.

Clockwise from above, Dr. Eileen Bradley, Dr. Syed Quadri, Dr. Joy Gibson and Dr. George Chacko

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Porter II Construction Well Under Wayphotos: ernie branson

Top: In the foreground at the corner of Lincoln Dr. and Convent Dr., huge cranes mark the early stages of construction on the second phase of the Porter Neuroscience Research Center (Bldg. 35, or PNRC II). Behind it on the same block are (from l) Porter I, which will connect with it eventually and form a unified PNRC, Bldg. 37 and the Vaccine Research Center (Bldg. 40). At right, across Convent Dr., stands the Conte Bldg. (Bldg. 49). NINDS, NICHD, NEI, NIDCR, NIBIB, NIDCD and NIMH are slated to share the 5-story Porter II facil-ity, which will contain more than 306,000 gross square feet of space. Center: A close-up shot shows the early foundation columns taking shape like spring garden shoots.Below: In a panorama view, multi-level parking lot 6 (l) and FDA’s Bldg. 29A flank the site.

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